Interest rates have been low across all major advanced economies for some time now. The decline in interest rates – both nominal and real – has been a persistent trend since the 1990s and is visible in the long-term interest rates on government bonds [Slide 2: 10 year government bond yields]. A range of structural factors have been proposed for this secular decline in the rate of return on safe assets, including demographic changes, a slowdown in the rate of technological progress, and a high demand for safe assets relative to their supply.[2] This decline in long-run interest rates has consequences for monetary ... (full story)